Editorial: What is going on in the Westmoreland County Register of Wills office?

It is a little embarrassing to be called on the carpet at work.

It’s a lot worse when the person doing the scolding is a judge — or two.

In a hearing Wednesday, Westmoreland County Common Pleas judges admonished Register of Wills Sherry Magretti Hamilton. The language was longer and more specific. The message, however, was clear: Do your job.

Hamilton’s office oversees the business of Orphan’s Court. It is responsible for a lot of the work that makes a difference in the lives of real people.

Did you get married? Did you adopt a child? Were you the beneficiary of a will? Do you need to be a guardian for a family member? These are just a few of the issues that work their way through Orphan’s Court. Because of the real consequences of the documentation involved, much of it is time-­sensitive. Sometimes a document has a deadline established by law. Sometimes it is imposed by a judge. Sometimes it is a more practical consideration. An adoption must be wrapped up to allow for a school registration. An estate must be settled so property can be sold.

The hearing was because of failure of Hamilton’s office to get that work done. Full disclosure: The handling of an appeal on the will of the late publisher of the Tribune-Review, Richard Mellon Scaife, was where it started. It was not how it ended, becoming a broader critique of how the office works.

It left Hamilton in tears. The office was disorganized. The office was understaffed. The workers who are there are undertrained or disloyal, she said.

But Hamilton also admitted she was not around much. Although she collects a salary of nearly $90,000, the position is a part-time job where she spends 20 to 30 hours a week on average. Oh, but not in 2023, when she had family and health issues.

That happens. Life is complicated. But Hamilton had time to run for reelection in 2023. And these complications are nothing new. When she ran for her last term in 2019 against one of her own clerks, Katie Pecarchik, the lack of time she spent in the office was a factor.

When Pecarchik filed a Right to Know request for Hamilton’s time logs, she found none existed.

“Being an elected official is not a 9-to-5 job,” Hamilton told TribLive at the time.

Judges Harry Smail Jr. and Christopher Feliciani have ordered rigid timelines. The office has five days to file and process adoption records and 10 days to complete any pending scanning, docketing and distribution of orders, disposition and estate documents. Other work is to be done in a timely manner without a hard deadline — but with a threat of penalties for Hamilton that include fines and incarceration.

She also has a contempt of court filing before Judge Jim Silvis in March that dates all the way back to orders issued in November 2022. There are 26 unresolved cases that date to 2019 — when Hamilton was running for her second term.

The county has struggled with filling positions recently, but Hamilton’s office struggles seem to go beyond that.

At some point, the register of wills will have to register something else: whether she has the will for a job she keeps running to do but that isn’t getting done.